Changes in reading abilities over the same school year
Francesco Viola, Barbara Carretti
A large amount of evidence has shown regular development of reading skills during the period of compulsory schooling and also during university studies. However, the evolution of these skills within the same school year as well as their potential relevance in the clinical setting is less clear. In the standardisation of the MT-3-Clinica (Cornoldi and Carretti, 2016) normative data were collected by administering the tasks to pupils from primary year 3 to lower secondary year 3, between October and April, without distinguishing norms in function of the school period. In this paper, we analysed the variations that can occur in reading performance within a school year. The results show modest, insignificant differences for test performance depending on the school period. On the contrary, test-retest administration leads, in the case of comprehension, to a significant improvement in performance, which must be taken into account in the specific cases in which they are repeated (as happens, for example, in the case of training).
Keywords
Decoding, reading comprehension, reading growth, reading speed.